My Favorite New Song-Poem Purchase This Year

Hey, there, Hi there, Ho there, you're as welcome as can be!

Let's get right to it: 

If you've read this site (and my posts at WFMU), you may be aware that I am a devotee of the music of the Caribbean, as well as the larger world of Latin music, circa the 1930's to the 1950's, particularly the Calypso music of Trinidad (and the somewhat faux Calypso that became a fad in the US during the 1950's), which I consider the best sub-genre of popular music ever devised by humankind. . 

Given that fact, there's no doubt that I would have jumped at the chance to snap up today's offering, once a partial sound file of it appeared on eBay. "That's the Life For Me!" appeared on the Tin Pan Alley, one of the few labels which (at the time, anyway, 1958 or so), was making an ongoing attempt to make their releases match the music styles of the day. 

Thus we have a lovely, lilting and energetic island sound backing up Jimmy Dee, who only made two documented records for the label, pretty much back to back. The percussionists here deserve special praise, driving the track along, but the guitarist is doing some really nice things, too, especially in the solo section. Jimmy Dee does a fine job, offering up a fairly passionate vocal. I'd say he's emulating Jackie Wilson, except that at the time this record was cut, Wilson probably only had one single out. But he's in the style, for sure. 

Download: Jimmy Dee - That's the Life For Me!

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The flip side is "You Mean All the World to Me". I continue to hear Jackie Wilson-esque vocal stylings from Jimmy Dee, but they seem pretty over-the-top on this very, very slow number. Your mileage may vary, but this just doesn't do anything for me at all. 

Download: Jimmy Dee - You Mean the World to Me

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And now it's time for our "cut-up" of the week. Previous posts have explained this feature enough that I hope I don't need to explain further. 

Anyway, today's offering is, I think, the most recent "cut-up" I've made (although I'll share something I did this year, which is not quite in the same genre, soon). It's not really "recent" - it's from 2015 - but I haven't done any since. 

It's an overhaul of the great Beatles' track "Norwegian Wood". As compared to the "cut-ups" I did in the early and mid 1980's, this one benefited fully from the excellent sound editing software I have now, compared with the cassette recorder pause button I had then. 

Multiple friends have said it's the best thing I've done in this area, mostly (or entirely) because of the way I fooled around with the sitar segments (and not so much the drop-ins heard throughout the vocal). But I think the whole thing is way above my average, and it's one of my favorites. 

A caveat: This is an extremely rude and off-color sound file. It is loaded with four letter words and other "blue" imagery. It is probably as foul-mouthed as anything I've ever done in a cut-up. If you're likely to be offended, maybe you should skip it, and it's absolutely not safe for work. 

On the other hand, those instrumental passages may just make you laugh out loud. 

Download: The Beatles - Norwegian Wood (cut-up)

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It Happened to Norm

Howdy, 

I'm going to do something I've mostly avoided doing today, and I'll get to that in a moment, but first, I want to thank the folks who have congratulated me on the new job - I really appreciate it - and also shout out to long time reader Jeff, who offered his first comment last week, and a very nice one, as well. I do like to respond to these things in e-mail, but I understand why many people choose not to attach their e-mail addresses to blog comments. 

And now: 

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The thing I tend not to do here, is sharing records which are already on YouTube. When I find something worth sharing, I always check before making MP3's, and if the record is easily available, I put it aside and choose something else. 

But today, I found that I really enjoyed one side of a 45 which is not available elsewhere, even though its flipside is, indeed, on YouTube, so I'm making an exception, which I'm sure I'll do again at some point. 

The side in question is by Norm Burns and the Satellites, except it's actually by Norm Burns and the "Satelites", which, spoken in English, might be pronounced "Sait Lights". A quick perusal of  the AS/PMA website shows this to have been the second documented release featuring the Satellites, a group name which would recur many times on the label, so it seems entirely possible to me that someone didn't know how to spell the word, and that shortly after this release, the spelling error was corrected. However, without seeing all of the records, that would be hard to prove. 

Anyway, the song in question is "It Happened Once Again", and here we again have Norm in supper club mode, offering up a strong, emotion-laden vocal over midtempo backing. And for the second time in a few weeks, I find myself hearing an almost Rodd Keith-esque backing arrangement, throughout the record, but specifically on the bridge sections, where Norm sings in unison with the backup singers before they offer harmony "oooh's". The lyrics are at least a few steps above the typical song-poem offering, too. 

Play: Norm Burns at the Satelites  - It's Happened Once Again

Play: 

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It's the flip side of "Happened" which is on YouTube, and it's a good one, too, "Hey! Hey! Lover". We're in the same key and almost the same tempo here, and yet the song is entirely different. This is punchier, and Norm gives the very different style of lyrics and very different approach. Again, the vocal arrangement (especially the "oh yeahs!") remind me of something Rodd Keith would have done.  The over-the-top reverb is all Sterling, though, and I love it. 

Play: Norm Burns at the Satelites  - Hey! Hey! Lover

Play:

~~

And another cut-up. Again, I encourage occasional readers to look at posts from late January and February for an explanation of what's going on here. 

Last time around, I started with a Queen appetizer, a very short pause-button special which got a ton of plays and downloads, so here again, I'll start with another Queen appetizer, another arrangement of the very same song, "We Will Rock You". In this case, I took the sections before and after the vocals and used the pause button to eliminate every other beat. That's what you'll hear in the first 20 seconds here, and it gave the piece a square dance feel that cracks me up. Even the solo sounds like there's a barnyard hoedown going on. For the last ten seconds or so, I rearranged the solo again, using the pause button (on and off) every half beat, giving the solo even more of a square dance feel. 

Download: Queen - We Will Rock You (pause button)

Play:

For the main dish, here's something much more obscure, although it was a huge hit in its day (1962). It's the much beloved character actor Walter Brennan and his top five hit, "Old Rivers". A story song always will lend itself to my cut-up style, and if it's spoken word, that works even better. I must have played around with this record at least a half dozen times, during my years of doing cut-ups. If you haven't heard the record, and want to be familiar with it before listening to the cut-up, it is available here. 

And again, I'll have to provide the warning that this is not safe for work, due to the inclusion of several off-color words. 

Download: Walter Brennan - Old Rivers

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The Earnestness and Directness of Early Cinema Records

Howdy!

First up, I'd like to refer back to last week's post. For those who saw it before my friend Stu did, it's worth a look in the comments, as there is a link to a photo of the actual address where the song-poet for the second shared song lived. A second commenter has added details about the property. And what's more, my pal Darryl Bullock (of World's Worst Records fame) has commented on the publishing dates for the two songs, which are, remarkably, from 12 years apart. 

Also, a frequent e-mail correspondent, Tyler, pointed out that I was wrong when I said I'd never heard the backing track on the second track before. It is featured in this post, from 2015, as well. Thanks, everyone!

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As mentioned last time around, I am now gainfully employed again, and as such, it has been an enormously busy few weeks, and looks to remain so for the near future. I will likely not have the time to be as verbose about what I'm sharing for awhile, which might well be a relief to some readers. So I may be sort of brief at times. 

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A caveat right up front: this record is beat to hell, and sounds it. 

 As I've mentioned - probably too many times - I am a big fan of the brief period of the Cinema label (roughly 1971 to some point in 1973) before the standard Preview/MSR people took over as the house band, always credited as "The Real Pros". During that early 24 months or so, many of the releases featured a solo male (whose voice I love) with one of those do it yourself console organs. A few others feature a female singer with an appealing ache in her voice, often with a bit more varied backing than the solo male. 

I often find those releases captivating in a particular way that most other song poems and song poem label's work are not. The two singers I refer to have an honesty, earnestness and directness (no doubt amplified by the simple arrangements of the songs) that stands out for me. Like few other song-poem singers, aside from Rodd Keith, they each have the ability to make the song sound like they are singing about their own lives, and that they mean every word. 

Today, we have the female singer I've just mentioned. And while I am surely not claiming greatness  here (or anything near it), for even the better of the two tracks - "I Cried and Cried" - I am saying that the singing connects with me, and the homeliness of it, in all of its girl-singing-in-her-living-room-in-1972 glory is very appealing to me. If you're not with me, at the very least, imagine what early '70's Tin Pan Alley, or God help us, what Halmark would have done with this lyric. Cinema did right by this song-poet and her direct, deeply felt lyric. 

Download: The Real Pros - I Cried and Cried

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The flip side, "To My Love", also features the warm vocals of the female singer heard above, to considerably less effect, although she still sounds like she means it. The whole thing is padded by about 45 seconds of a tremendously dull instrumental section. Also, while the lyrics are just as earnest as those on the flip, they are also considerably less interesting (to me, at least - maybe amateur lyrics of heartache are just more interesting to me amateur lyrics expressing being happily in love).

Download: The Real Pros - To My Love

Play:

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And now, yet another cut-up. Please see previous posts, going back to late January, for more information as to what I'm talking about. 

I have mostly been sharing things I did with a cassette recorder and multiple inputs, back in the period 1981-85, when I was in my early to mid 20's, but today, I have a cut-up I did with considerably better equipment, some twenty years later, in the mid 2000's. It's a nicely reworked version of Buzz-Buzz-Buzz, a terrific - no, absolutely essential - rock and roll record by The Hollywood Flames, from my single favorite year for popular music, 1957. If you haven't heard the song, it would help to know how it sounds before experiencing this cut-up. You can hear it here. 

There are a couple of mildly off-color words here but mostly, it's just silly. 

Download: The Hollywood Flames - Buzz-Buzz-Buzz (cut-up)

Play:

The Shortest Halmark Release Ever?

 Hello, everybody, hello!

Before I get started with today's items, I wanted to share that I have again been invited to be part of a podcast. It's the same show - Ephemeral - which has featured elements of my collection four times in the past, and has had me on, as an interviewee, three of those times. 

This time around, I am sharing the world of the Star Ads. Those of you who have been with me since the WFMU days, or the 2003 365 days project before that, might remember the Star Ads, but in case you don't know what I'm talking about, I have shared excerpts from them here and here. 

The new podcast, which features several more , previously unshared Star Ads, can be heard at: 

https://www.ephemeral.show/episode/star-ads

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I would also like to share that, as of this coming Monday, I will again be gainfully employed. Thanks to everyone who chimed in with encouragement and/or condolences regarding the loss of my previous job. 

~~

And now, a Halmark release that I found very interesting!

First, this is one of the comparatively few Halmark discs which names the singer, and what's more, it gets the singer right on both sides. This really is the vocalist most often identified as "Bob Storm" (of those which do feature performers' names, multiple Halmark releases have the wrong singer named on them). 

But more to the point, this is, by a significant degree, the shortest Halmark release I've ever come across. Halmark tracks tend to be lengthier than their song-poem compatriots from other labels, usually at or beyond three minutes, and regularly stretching to - and far beyond - four minutes. They often also seem to go on longer than those on other labels, but that's another story. 

But the lengths of both tracks on this release add up to less than four minutes and fifteen seconds. The longer of the two - "Goodness Can Still Prevail" - is just 2:09. 

"Goodness Can Still Prevail" seems to have been an exercise in rhyming for the song-poet, as he threw in a bunch of words that end in the "Ale" or "Ail". That made me laugh. Bob Storm certainly Bob Storms it up, offering his most unctuous vocal style, to entertain us. 

One last note: the absolutely cruddy sound quality that permeates the much of this track is from the record and not from anything I did in turning it into an MP3. That Halmark sold such a poor product, which sounds like it was recorded on damaged recording tape, says a lot about them.

Download: Bob Storm - Goodness Can Still Prevail

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The flip side, "Fallin' Tears", stands out for me, in that I don't recall ever hearing this backing track before, on a Halmark release. Additionally, it certainly sounds like a track which was created for a specific hit song, as we've discovered to be the case for multiple other Halmark tracks. If there is another Halmark release in circulation this backing track - one I find more pleasant than most of what they used - please remind/inform me of it. 

It's also worth noting that the lyrics here are fairly direct, simple but effective, and not at all like many of the overwrought efforts that frequently found their way to Halmark's storefront. 

This track lasts just 124 seconds, and I'm having a hard time recalling a shorter Halmark track. 

Oh, and see below, after the label scan....

Download: Bob Storm - Fallin' Tears

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The song-poet in this case was apparently quite happy with his creation and with Halmark's work with it. As seen below, from the 45 sleeve, he stamped it with his name and address, and in another spot on the sleeve, offered a signed copy to someone named Ethel. 

And here's a quick update: please see the comments for a link that my pal Stu offered, to a Google Maps view of that very address.

~~~

And now, it's time for a couple more Cut-Ups. Please see previous posts, going back to the end of January, for an explanation of these tapes, which I made in the early '80's, while in my early 20's. I have two of them today. 

First up, a very, very short example, which is more of a "fun with the pause button" example than a true "cut-up". For here we have what I've called "We Will Rock You (Sliced and Diced)", 20 seconds of the first measure of that Queen classic, rearranged radically and somewhat violently. Hopefully, this will make you laugh. 

Download: Queen - We Will Rock You (Sliced and Diced)

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And then there is this rearrangement of the opening track from my choice as the greatest album ever made, The Beatles' "Abbey Road". I've indicated, in the track name, that this is a "composite" version of "Come Together", and that's because I cut-up that track twice, in quick succession, way back when, and while neither of them was funny enough to share on its own, they each had some great moments, so I have combined the best of each of them into one single cut-up. 

The inserts here rely heavily on excerpts from Monty Python albums, and also - as very many of my cut-ups did - ridiculous things said by Gary Owens on his wonderful show "Soundtrack of the '60's", which was in production at that time. 

Oh, and there are two four letter words mixed in here, along with at least one loud expression of another word not often said in polite company. 

Download: The Beatles - Come Together (cut-up)

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A question: are people enjoying these? Should I continue to share them?